


The Faces of Halloweentown

by russian_blue



Category: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/pseuds/russian_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The question has always been: just what should this place be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Faces of Halloweentown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [billtheradish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/billtheradish/gifts).



The question has always been: just what should this place be?

Halloweentown came into existence as a gateway. As the year slid into darkness, the way opened, and _things_ came through to the human world. What things? All kinds, of course. Dearly departed family members, come to visit their living kin. Faerie creatures whose aid could mean the difference between survival and death during the coming winter. Darker things that had to be propitiated, lest death be assured.

Then it became a place of disguise, where no one was who they appeared to be. Male was female, alive was dead, human masqueraded as faerie (and sometimes vice versa). If you hide from the dark things, they can't hurt you . . . but the price is that you never know who you're dealing with. Best to be generous with your food in the aftermath of harvest. Even now, Halloweentown remembers the old generosity.

From disguise, it is not so long of a step to trickery and pranks, and so on to commercialization and cartoon specials on TV. But at the same time there is the bright mirror to the shadows, the serious side to the frivolous coin, a night spent praying for the saints and the souls of the dead. Which one should Halloween be: wicked or holy? Generous or cruel? Are the lights to guide the souls onward, or to ward off the things coming back?

Questions with no answer. Or rather, many answers: as many as the rulers of Halloweentown. It wasn't always Jack Skellington, whatever the inhabitants think. They are creatures of their place, and so they remember Halloweentown as it is now, going back into eternity. When the town changes, so do they. Only Halloweentown remembers it all.

When Jack left, everything teetered on a knife's edge. The ruler went away, losing himself in someone else's purpose, dragging with him the trailing chains of his own nature. He was a kindly soul at heart; he only wanted the screams to be in good fun, with everyone smiling and laughing when it was done and sharing their candy in the bright light of home. Not so with Oogie Boogie: he was a creature of the old ways, though he did not remember them. He wanted true horror, the fear of what might lurk in the night and the cold of the dying year.

It's there, hovering in the shadows. The Halloweentown of slasher films, of murder and blood and loss that can never be restored. It isn't such a new thing, really. This place was that place once, and could be again.

Which one does it want? Foolish question. Halloweentown is not so simple an entity as that. It is all of those things, and will be all of them again in due course. All the realms change that way, and trade influence among them; where do you think Krampus came from? But it was willing to give Oogie Boogie a chance. Let him start his reign of terror, and keep it if he could.

But he couldn't. He fell to pieces at Jack Skellington's hand. Just like the monsters always do, and always have done, and always shall do in nights to come.

Until Halloweentown changes again.

It can wait.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I think I may have creeped myself out about Halloweentown with this one. :-) Thanks for the prompt; I love anthropomorphizing places, but had never thought to apply it to this movie until I read your letter!


End file.
